How Aaron Orendorff Creates The Most Shared Posts on Copyblogger, Unbounce, & Shopify

They say necessity is the mother of invention. And failure is often one of the greatest catalysts and motivations of necessity.

Four years ago, Aaron Orendorff’s life was crumbling around him. He was living in the middle-of-nowhere, Oregon. In his words, he was “unemployed and unemployable.” He had no idea what he was going to do.

With his back up against the wall, Aaron launched a blog and was off to the races.

Now, Aaron is busy saving the world from bad content as a copywriter extraordinaire at IconiContent. Aaron is a contributor at Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc, Business Insider, Content Marketing Institute, Unbounce, and many other major business and marketing publications.

Listen to my interview with Aaron as we talk about how he turned his life around and started to get guest posts on major publications:

Jason’s Interview Notes With Aaron Orendorff

What were the building blocks that helped you start publishing on major sites?

Ignorance. Be aware of your ignorance, but don’t let it stop you. The thought of needing to be “good enough” often holds you back from what you can accomplish.

Write the full article before pitching. Here is a gift for you, it’s ready to publish.

Note: My personal experience with personal bloggers is it’s best to pitch 3 ideas, give an outline, and allow them to choose. This is what I did for getting on sites like Blogging Wizard, Mirasee (formerly Firepole Marketing), and Mad Lemmings. Consider what works for you, not others.

What were some of your biggest wastes of time?

Personal relationships did not work in getting a lead. It worked better to cold pitch them. Something like – “I finished this piece, perfect fit for this, here’s the article, let me know if interested.”

If you are making an ask, make sure it is relevant, short, and to-the-point.

How were you able to get the most shared (and “traffic-ed”) articles for Unbounce, Shopify-Plus, and Copyblogger? What was your process?

Sink 80% of your energy into 20% of your content.

Create long-form, beast articles that are going to establish you.

Start with what’s already popular, either on that site or a similar site